Birla Corporation Limited, the flagship company of the MP Birla Group, announced today its financial results for the Quarter and Half-year ended 30 September 2018, including the results of RCCPL Private Limited (formerly Reliance Cement Company Private Limited), wholly-owned material subsidiary of the Company.
The results of this quarter and the half year have been led by impressive volume growth and improved price realization in the Central region, primarily Uttar Pradesh, which is a core market for the group. In the East, where the market conditions were stable, the Company maintained its position. The price situation in the North continued to be soft. However, the Company was able to mitigate the impact of cost escalations and low realization by several cost reduction initiatives and market optimization measures, to deliver an overall strong performance in challenging conditions.
The synergy benefits of the RCCPL consolidation are now clearly visible. The RCCPL plants have been operating at the highest level of efficiency, their operating parameters being among the best in the industry. Capacity utilization has gone up to 80%, compared to 68% in the corresponding quarter.
The co-branding strategy at the BCL and RCCPL plants has enabled enhancing the marketing footprint as well as offering a bouquet of brands across price bands. MP Birla Cement is now a substantial player in the fast growing markets of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh with high share of the premium segment.
The Company has been able to show better results than the corresponding quarter on account of highervolumes and realization,higher proportion of premium productsand blended cement and optimization of logistics and other costs, in a challenging environment, associated with significant spend in fuel and powercosts which was higher by Rs 40 crores and exchange loss which was higher by Rs17croresfor the quarter compared to the corresponding quarter.
The Board of Directors of RCCPL Private Limited (formerly Reliance Cement Company Private Limited), at its recent meeting, has approved the proposal to carry out the second phase expansion of the existing capacity of the cement grinding plant at Kundanganj (Uttar Pradesh) by installing the third line of production with an annual capacity of 1.2 million tons. This will increase the cement capacity of the Kundanganj plant to 3.2 MTPA from 2 MTPA.
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